Praise for Labor (it's OK, you've got the right blog) and an infestation of detestation at The Astonisher, plus some special awards.

This week's Gucci In The Gob Award for a foot-in-the-mouth disease goes to the waffling member for Herbert, Ewen Jones. On ABC morning radio, our boyo was being put through the hoops by the ABC's Paula The Mauler Tapiolas. She quizzed him about a promised walkway on Magnetic Island, urgently needed to alleviate a dangerous situation which forced people to walk on the roadway.

The Mauler asked if funding money could not be forthcoming more quickly from some other government program.

Quoth the Jones boy,''I looked into getting money from the Roads Blackspot program, but unfortunately, not enough people have died'. Unfortunate indeed, damn those pesky people, no community spirit at all, eh, mate?

But The Magpie was relieved that our man didn't qualify for the other main award of the week, the image would be hard to erase, as you will find out when you read on.

Fancy a mid-week quickie with The Magpie?

If that sounds a bit saucy, it's because today we must talk of the - uh oh -  F word. Now before you pick up your skirts and dash away for the laudanum bottle - or in the case that you're a gal, suddenly develop a headache - the F word in question here is - Fenugreek. This is a herb, and is not, as Mongrel the Barrister imagined, a regionally identified position in the Karma Sutra. Fenugreek is an age-old staple spice for curry.

It has also long been known that among it's many medicinal properties, fenugreek has for eons been used to assist in the smooth flow of lactating milk, and has been a proven breast enlarger.
But The `Pie was thrown into deep contemplation this week with the outcomes of a study by Brisbane-based company Applied Science and Nutrition, in conjunction with the University of Queensland's medical school, which (somehow) found that men taking fenugreek can boost their sex drive by at least a quarter.

Read on to have a look at the story, and contemplate the host of unanswered question that have been left - well, left dangling.

What do Typo, Katter, Cuddlepie, Churchill and fighting feminists have in common? They're all your guests this week in the Nest.

Your menu of trinkets, m'dears:

* Cuddlepie proves that desperate times call for desperate - albeit ludicrous - measures with a mega brain-fade on his highway from hell

* Churchillian echoes for Bob Katter's Cut Snake Party, 

* fun as two big Brunhildes of the sisterhood go the gouge on each other in the jelly-filled      wrestling ring of feminist ideology, 

* The Astonisher has two bob each way on its much trumpeted green credentials and 

* Typo gets it wrong in an editorial.   

All these baubles along with Nest's resident doodler Bentley's bent view of the state of Aussie politics in an overflowing nest atwww.townsvillemagpie.com.au

Naming rights and wrongs, cops cop out again, and - shock, horror - The Magpie gives The Mullet his full support!

There may be a cosmic force out there dedicated to our destiny, but this week, The Magpie is tempted to believe more in a comic farce dedicated to giving us the nervous giggles.

It is often cheap sport to make fun of accents, but a special nod must be given to that oily crook Sepp Blatter, the FIFA chief cheat, trained in the three wise monkeys school of excuses. On telly this week, he said he hadn't investigated corruption allegations because 'it wasn't in my moneyfesto'. He might have meant manifesto, but his prounounciation sounded far more interesting. And accurate.

This reminds The Magpie of the widow of Charles de Gaulle, when asked what she now wanted from life, replied 'A penis', which was a bit too forthright even for a French woman. It proved to be a monumental 'accent accident' - she meant ' 'appiness'.

For another example of comic over cosmic, there is that little storm-in-a-Y-front yarn from the US, where a Congressman and front-runner to be the next mayor of New York has done a public mea culpa. This star-spangled bozo has admitted he's been a naughty boy behaving badly on Facebook and elsewhere, sending supposedly raunchy pix of himself to women he met on the internet.

Among his offerings is a pic of his 'bulging' Reg Grundies - he was in them of course, although we only have his word for that. So what, you both cry. Read on.

Wine and Tripe: an unlikely combination - unless you read wine reviews.

The Magpie has long held that there are certain groups in our community that are off their rockers when it comes to public pronouncements. These include radio DJ's, architects, real estate agents and most apparent of all, wine writers.

So it was with palsied trembling that The Magpie read this week of the sale of a couple of bottles of champagne at auction for something approaching $80,000.

Typo declares the Astonisher's politics, no fags for old lags in our sin bins, and The Brat is back?

The Magpie notes with interest that latest politically correct term for the dim and simple who walk among us is 'developmentally delayed'. 

Sounds like Townsville's construction industry. (See, yaya nah nah, you both expected a cheap shot about The Daily Astonisher there, didn't you? Well, stiff fromage, me old dears - that comes later on.)

But the phrase suddenly brought to mind former tennis tosser John McEnroe, one of the all-time bed-wetting whiners of the sport.

It has been said that in his playing days, McEnroe wore that distinctive head sweatband to hide the circumcision scars. As others have said, if indeed Mr McEnroe is circumcised, they threw away the wrong bit.

All this cheery reminiscing was sparked off when The `Pie read somewhere that this unpleasant loudmouth has agreed to do some coaching on the Indian sub-continent. 

So what can we expect from this venture, if it happens.